In the 21st century there are now two overarching types of communities; Off-line and on-line. The young or the millennium generation will actively and capably manage to engage in both. On-line communities differ from off-line communities in the sense that there are no boundaries. On-line communities are truly global communities. Here are some thoughts on the idea of global citizenship will relation to on-line communities. With regards to schooling there are implications that arise. What is the role of schooling in preparing the young for Global Citizenship? What are the moral requirements and knowledge needed to be a on-line global citizen? And finally, how might this be achieved?
An On-line community is one that exists in a virtual space on the Internet. These occur in spaces such as email, chat rooms, My Space, Facebook, and interactive gaming sites.
They are global communities because through the nature of the Internet anyone around the globe has access.
Global citizenship is similar to regular citizenship that we are all familiar with except that it relates to on-line spaces only.
Citizenship and a person’s social role and responsibility have typically been taught at schools in subject such as SOSE, society and culture or geography and history. The question is do we need to add on-line citizenship into these subjects school curriculum. I thin the answer is yes. Social roles and responsibility and in particular ethical behaviour.. Stranger danger is being addressed already but not particularly attached to these subjects that would allow for a real world connection and perspective to be gained. In addition students need to understand topics from a variety of perspectives. Cross curricula learning enables this to occur.
Before we discuss how Global Citizenship should be taught it is important to articulate exactly what makes global citizenship different from everyday real world citizenship.
So how might we achieve integrating this into curriculum and into everyday teaching practice?
oh god - sorry this is a boring one!
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